


Just One

by mageofpie



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Cannibalism, EDIT: made this just a one shot, Gen, Half-Wendigo, i think it works better that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mageofpie/pseuds/mageofpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Help wasn’t coming.<br/>Jessica had been mumbling this to herself for… hours? Days? Time wasn’t really something she could keep track of anymore.<br/>AU where Jessica never makes it out of the mines and has to resort to... desperate measures</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry

Just One

* * *

 

Help wasn’t coming.

Jessica had been mumbling this to herself for… hours? Days? Time wasn’t really something she could keep track of anymore. She didn’t have a watch, a phone, she couldn’t even see the sky to tell when one day led to the next. All she knew was that she’d been stumbling her way through these mines for too long. Too long for someone to not have found her, if anyone was even looking. She walked, she slept, she woke up, she kept walking. She didn’t even know if she was making progress. Probably not. Everything looked the same down here; same rocks, same support beams, same silence.

Jessica remembered a time during the start of this hell when she could hear the echoed screech of _something_. The something that had dragged her down here in the first place.

At first it had seemed like a sick joke the universe was pulling on her. The first few hours of shuffling her bruised and battered limbs around, half naked, nothing but a dead man’s jacket and boots to protect her from the freezing weather were almost hilarious. How fitting of her to die out here in this way. Alone. Her. Jessica Martin, who’d surrounded herself with people, who’d been the life of every party she went to, who’d spent the majority of her life trying to be the girl she saw in TV shows and movies who always had a friend close by just in case.

And here she was, alone, starving to death in an abandoned mine.

Rounding yet another corner, Jess dragged her hand along the muddy wall and muttered incoherent nothings to herself, her steps feeling heavier and her stomach feeling as though it was caving in. She had taken her hair out of their braids a while ago. At least 5 sleeps ago, at least. Her hair hung around her shoulders and in front of her face but she’d lost decided to put all her energy into moving her legs rather than hair out of her face.

It had taken her more effort to get up from sleep this time.

If she stopped now… there was no guarantee that she’d be able to start back up again.

Her eyes were no longer seeing anything but the colour brown and so it came as no shock when she tripped on an unseen drop and fell into a slightly lower muddy floor.

She stayed like that. Half kneeling, half laying on the ground, her forehead planted firmly on the floor and her hands clenching into fists. Jessica felt the reality of the situation slowly begin to sink in again and all she could do was let the hot tears spill down her face. It was going to be impossible to get out of here by herself, she knew that from the start but even then she remained hopeful that _something_ would happen or that _someone_ would save her. Mike had almost done it once and he could do it again, right? However many days had past and she’d gotten nowhere and futility of her quest suddenly hit Jess all at once. Her body gave out and she only half realised that she had fallen onto her side as a broken sob echoed through the silent mine. She curled her frail body into the foetal position and pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes, not giving a shit that they were covered in mud and god knows what else. She was going to die here anyway, who gave a fuck about an eye infection?

She hiccupped and moved her hands to run through her hair, both her arms caging her head as her body convulsed with sobs. For a brief moment, the blonde’s eyes opened and through blurred vision she saw a colour that didn’t match with the normal earthy palette she had become used to. Her eyebrows furrowed and she blinked to try and get rid of the tears that were still falling down her face.

Weakly, almost impossibly, Jessica lifted herself up to get a better view of whatever it was she could see and squinted into the darkness but felt her stomach lurch at what came into focus.

She’d recognise that letterman jacket anywhere.

“Matt…” Her voice scratched against her throat, and Jessica winced. Now, with growing despair, she managed to push herself up and forward a few steps which was far enough to collapse again just a few feet away from him.

She knew he was dead.

She just didn’t want it to be real.

Jessica clawed her way forward, grunting and whimpering until Matt’s face came into view and she felt her short breaths catch in her throat and the tears well up again. Matt’s face was frozen, jaw hanging open, eyes blown wide with fear and pain. Blood clotted in his nose and mouth and from where Jessica was, she could see a ragged hole in his jaw.

“Please no, please god, no, _no please_ …”

With her strength quickly dwindling, Jessica lunged forward and gripped onto Matt’s jacket with shaking hands, grabbing fistfuls of fabric to ground herself in the situation. This was real. It was real. Matt was dead.

She pulled herself up, kneeling next to Matt and sobbing into his jacket. Her brain was trying to convince her that this wasn’t real and that whatever she was holding was just a mannequin, the lack of heartbeat and coldness could have fooled her had she not glanced up again to look at Matt’s face. With a shaking hand, Jessica reached and closed Matt’s eyes but couldn’t bring herself to do anything about his gaping mouth. She noted, with some semblance of curiosity, that the path below Matt’s legs was disturbed, like his body had been dragged from somewhere before the thing that had done this gave up and left him.

_Like you?_

Jessica shook her head at the thought. How close was she to being dead when she was dragged out of that window what felt like months ago? What if Michael hadn’t come for her in time? Not that it mattered now, she was still going to die only now it would be after torturous days of isolation and starvation.

Jess was almost glad that she’d found Matt’s body, so she wasn’t completely alone.

At that thought she let out a weak, dry laugh. How morbid.

Why was he down here though? Had he been looking for her? Through her foggy memories of the night she couldn’t remember any other reason as to why Matt would have been down here. The last she saw everyone she had made an ass of herself by getting into a petty argument with Emily. None of them probably cared to look for her even if they did find out of her disappearance after that display so, no, he had to have been down here for something else.

Jessica felt her head throb and buried her face further into Matt’s jacket. The lack of water, the crying, and all this thinking was burning her out quickly.

A violent shiver worked its way through her and Jessica sat up straight and wiped her face on the dirt crusted sleeve of her own jacket, full of tears and holes. It didn’t really do much to keep her warm anymore and her bare legs had been numb for days. She could have lost toes to frostbite and she wouldn’t have known. A weary eye glanced back down at Matt’s jacket and sweatpants.

_Well… he doesn’t really need them anymore._

The thought made Jessica wince with guilt but she still found herself attempting to pull off Matt’s sweatpants with numb hands. She was too desperate to be worrying about her morals right now.

After a few tumbles and nearly ripping out her fingernails with the frantic pulls at fabric, Jessica had managed to take Matt’s jacket and pants and was now relishing in the first form of warmth she’d had in days. She had lay her old jacket over Matt’s bare legs out of respect and pulled her own, now covered legs up to her chin, hugging them and leaning against the nearest wall. That was one problem out of the way.

Almost as if it was reminding her, Jessica’s stomach made a loud gurgling noise and she curled in more on herself at the sudden sharp pain. She was still going to die, but at least now the cold wouldn’t get her first. The hunger would. Even on the day of the trip she hadn’t eaten anything major, just a few snacks on the bus ride up. For a brief moment she remembered Chris’ first words to her when he came out of the cable car, joking about how any longer in there and he would have chewed off his own leg. She felt a brief flash of anger at the memory which she knew was irrational because how was Chris supposed to know Jess would be plunged into a situation where chewing her own leg off may actually have to be an option.

_Or Matt’s._

The thought struck Jessica like a blow to the head and she almost recoiled at how sincere she sounded.

Obviously, she was joking. She was joking, right? She knew she had to be, and yet…

Lifting her head, Jessica stared at Matt’s form through locks of hair. Involuntarily, she licked her lips.

Matt was a big guy. Lots of muscle. Lots of meat.

Her stomach growled against the heavy silence.

Her head throbbed again and Jessica winced but kept her eyes glued to Matt’s body like he was going to suddenly leap up and start skipping around the mine. Jessica felt as though someone had suddenly dimmed the lights in her eyes so that her sole focus was on Matt. There was a desperation to her movements as she crawled her way back over to him.

_What am I doing?_

Jessica sucked in a breath through her nose and closed her eyes as she hovered near the body. She wasn’t seriously going to do this, right? She wasn’t seriously considering eating her best friend, right?

_Didn’t you just say you were too desperate to be worried about morals right now?_

She did.

But this is different.

_How is this different? You’re starving. He’s dead for fucks sake. Who’s gonna know? At least just something to keep you going, right? You can look around some more, see if there’s a way out._

That was a lie. There was no way out. Not for her.

Why was she justifying herself?

Fuck.

Too many thoughts. Not enough energy. Need _food_.

Jessica sucked in another breath and opened her eyes, staring down at Matt’s body. With shaking hands, she rolled up one of his sweater sleeves to expose his forearm.

It was then that Jessica realised she was crying again. Sobbing, actually. She was actually going to do this. She was desecrating her best friend’s corpse for the sole reason of her own survival which, by this point, was pointless. So why was she doing this? Why couldn’t she just die here, against this wall? She sucked in her wobbling bottom lip and gnawed on it, eyes twitching between Matt’s face and his arm.

“I-I’m so sorry… _so sorry_ …” Her voice sounded broken.

She _felt_ broken.

Just one bite.

Just one.


End file.
